Designing route planner services that play well with paper

June 19, 2007

These days when you see someone wondering down the street looking lost, chances are they don’t have a shop-bought map in their hands – it’s much more likely they have a scrappy looking print-out from a web-based route planner service. And chances are they are looking very lost.

Take Google Maps for example – the directions they give you are completely linear. If you mess up on one step, you are completely lost as none of the steps are relevant to you anymore. And the maps it gives you are equally hopeless, only showing you the happy route, with little detail of the areas you so desperately need if you get lost.

What I want when I ask for directions on Google Maps is a series of high quality A4 maps that show me the route AND the surrounding area.

4 comments

Anonymous coward

June 20, 2007

Although I had the initial urge to comment “Get a satnav!” or “Go to the store and buy a map already”, I see where you are coming from. I’ve had to use one of those linear route guides once. Never again. I now have a Tomtom… But there are times when paper is better (on foot? travelling light? no battery needed?).